Ted looked away and the Rag and Bone Man dropped the mirror. His charge had seen enough obviously, but things were only just getting started. Ted looked past the skeletal figure, whose coat could no longer conceal its ribcage, open to the air. This representation of everything Frank held so dear, this figure that was all the Rag and Bone Men there’d ever been rolled into one, had made its home in a fittingly nightmarish place. Because the more Ted looked, the more he saw of the yard, filled not only with ordinary rubbish, but the more specific junk of human waste. Bones, organs, scraps of clothing, all plugged the gaps where he’d dared not look before.
Ironically, Ted felt like laughing. He’d been pleading for his life when all along there was no life to spare. No wonder Audrey had been ignoring him—had he really been speaking at all? Had any of this actually been happening? It certainly felt real to him, but that didn’t mean anything.
Somehow Ted knew he would soon fill the spaces here, just like those women who’d wronged Audrey, who’d wrong the line. Trapped in their own private Hell. (For a moment, Ted wondered if they were seeing this, or something else entirely; perhaps this particular treat had been reserved only for him?)
But it was time, he saw. When the Rag and Bone Man came for him now, Ted surrendered without protest.
To be carried over to the pile of junk, of scrap human life.
To join the walls of organs, body parts and muscle.
To join ... no, finally to become the rag ...
... and ...
... the bone.
BIORHYTHMS
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred.
Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric.”
In the middle of the glade he sat.
Kyle Stanton, crossed-legged, upturned hands on each knee, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. He moved not one muscle: perfectly still like some kind of waxwork of himself. He had been in this position since sun up—two, maybe three hours—and would remain just so until the sun descended once again.
He ate very little and always first thing in the morning. Never during the day. The same went for ablutions. Kyle toileted once, just before adopting the lotus. He slept in a cave a short walk from here, but only for seven hours a night precisely—Kyle had no need for alarm clocks, he simply wakened himself when it was time to get up.
His body, naked to the four winds, was perfectly relaxed. Insects crawled over him: he didn’t flinch. Animals came to sniff at him: he took no notice. A rainstorm yesterday had saturated him: he let it. For his mind was focused on other things. His will was strong and a determination to succeed coursed through him.
Kyle had always been curious about his physical form, even at an early age. He lost count of the amount of times he’d examined himself, casting a quizzical eye over his flesh and wondering just what the hell he was, what this did and what that did. He was extremely lucky to have had such liberal-minded parents, ageing hippies as a point of fact (turned joiner and seamstress to earn a crust). They were far from ashamed of their own bodies and happily wandered around the small house they rented with not a stitch on. His mum and dad taught him not to have any hang-ups and for this he would always be grateful. How many people went through their lives not really understanding themselves, embarrassed like Adam and Eve after the apple? Kyle soon came to realise that, like everyone else on the planet, he was a remarkable biological machine. Something unique.
He began to hone his body to physical perfection. At school he excelled in sports. Athletics, football, rugby, tennis, cross-country running ... He had medals for them all. Exercise was very important and he made sure he stuck to a workable regimen. But he also developed his mind. With literature, sciences (especially biology), the arts and mathematics. Kyle was the only boy he knew who set himself extra homework, who would visit the library on a regular basis and use up every ticket he had. He was the star pupil, an all-rounder. The powers that be had big plans for him.
However, as he told them in no uncertain terms, his destiny lay in another direction. No diplomas or university degrees for Kyle Stanton. That’s not to say he didn’t continue with his studies. His fascination with the human body—both inside and out—encouraged him to learn all there was to learn about its functions. And limitations. Starting with Gray’s Anatomy, he absorbed enormous amounts of information about the structure of the mortal coil. He memorised tremendous chunks of text, diagrams, names. By the end of his self-taught course, he could have passed as a doctor—specialising in any one of a dozen areas—with flying colours.
But his investigations were not limited merely to such dry technical fields. He was far too active an individual to be tied down to a desk all day, every day. In addition to his theoretical research, Kyle also took up more practical pursuits. First he learnt Yoga (hero posture—both upright and reclining—dog posture, extended triangle, sitting spine twist, bridge posture, plough posture, shoulder stand, corpse ...), then massage. He became an expert in Reflexology, Shiatsu, Acupressure, Do-in, Osteopathy and so on and so forth. If there were classes being run at the local college, Kyle was there. Indeed, that’s how he made his living at the beginning. The teachers were so impressed with his flair for these relaxation and healing techniques, he was soon being offered a part-time, then later full-time, position instructing others. No one knew their way around the human body like Kyle did.
From here he branched out into legitimate massage parlours and total fitness centres. The loans from the bank were quickly paid back as word spread and his empire grew. This, of course, gave Kyle the freedom to experience even more, travelling to foreign parts to sit at the right hand of adepts. He quickly added Acupuncture to his repertoire, then Polarity Therapy devised by Dr Randolph Stone, an amalgamation of notions from East and West allowing the practitioner to balance up prana (as they called the body’s energy flow in India), before re-examining Chinese Taoist teachings which posited the view that such energy, here called chi, travelled along well-defined circuits—making full use of his extensive knowledge of meridian lines.
Kyle learnt to master his breathing, a trick actually taught to him by one of America’s most famous magicians, who used it when he did those impressively dangerous underwater stunts. Kyle could control his bladder and bowels with no effort whatsoever. And he soon regulated his eating and sleeping habits to suit. No food with artificial additives, no preservatives. Just fresh fruit and vegetables, and meat from his own personal reserves. He drank only water; not one drop of alcohol poisoned his system. Plus he refused to smoke, exiting a room if he so much as glimpsed a person lighting up. Accordingly, he took no drugs of any kind, including steroids or “performance-enhancing” pills. So while the majority of his peers were either stoned or whacked out on E or Coke, he settled for the highs that only his particular lifestyle choice could grant him.
For example, Kyle applied what he’d discovered to his activities in the bedroom. His awareness of the main Chakras allowed him to practise Tantric sex, which sometimes went on for many hours, his “dabblings” in Taoist traditions giving him the ability to have multiple—or even full-body—orgasms. And, of course, his broad grounding in female as well as male physiology proved invaluable for satisfying whichever partner, or partners, he happened to be entertaining that week (Sharon, Brenda, Tracy, Natalie, Angelica, Louise, Elsa ... the list went on and on). Along with the monetary wealth he’d accumulated, something his parents never really approved of, this made him one of the most eligible bachelors in the world.
Yet he still wasn’t happy. Kyle could walk across hot coals, nap on a bed of six-inch nails (thanks to a fakir he once met in Bombay), swim underwater for almost a quarter of an hour with no compulsion for air, and climb the very highest of mountains without safety ropes or fear of breaking into a sweat. He was the perfect physical specimen; a superman in some senses ... But it was nowhere near enough for him.
He